Roadmap for doubling the millet farmers’ income by 2021–22

The call for doubling the farmers’ income in India by 2021–22 has been a need of the hour. The agriculture in India comes largely under dryland conditions. Millets are mostly cultivated in dryland conditions in many parts of India where there is no scope for cultivating other cereal crops. Millets are resistant to adverse climatic conditions and can be grown with minimum access to irrigation water and various kinds of soil conditions. Thus with the increase in the earnings from millets cultivation will have a significant impact in the dryland farmers. The following strategy paper concentrates on the policy issues that are needed to be addressed shortly to improve the farmers’ income in the coming years.